Scrolling Website With Changing Content

What are heavy colors. Do you mean that it is too graphic? Is it a better start than the other one. I'm trying to almost "modernize" the site by making it look less confined and going with the trend. Is that a better start? I'm open to any alternative suggestions you have as well or any articles I could read to get more insight.

"heavy" colours are simply dark colours. This is why designers 'design' and the rest of us are left wondering how they make it look so "easy".

Colours affect moods, take a look out of your window, what colours are there that you feel cheerful, and what colours make you feel like the whole of nature is conspiring just to make you feel miserable?

On the over-stretched JPEG, when creating graphic elements start BIG and use vectors not rasters or bitmaps

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Should I scratch that image. How would you recommend designing or choosing graphics that makes the website come to life and adds to the design. I get the fact that less is more and with this design I'm trying to focus more on the content by involving getting rid of distracting elements through simplifying the navigation bar, hiding the sidebar except on hover, and either removing or decreasing the footer. I also noticed most modern websites involve the whole page in the design, not just a centered box like I have.

2) Make the background of the site predominantly white and/or light grey to give it a more inviting feel

3) Have content displayed along with images directly on top of background without putting it in boxes. Between two subtopics, the background color may change slightly or I may introduce a new set of images. Some small content will appear once user scrolls a certain point and that content will be in boxes.

I really want this design to be a lot more modern looking and better so I am completely redesigning the site. I have less than a week before the site is due (although all my content is done and written) so I want to be able to do this as quickly as possible.